Bill Jasper, President and CEO of Unifi, said, "As anticipated, the March quarter was a challenging one, as we continued to manage through a weak market. However, by staying focused on the continuous improvement of our costs and operational efficiencies, market share growth and product mix enhancements, we have achieved fundamental improvements in our underlying business.
When combined, we have realized annualized savings of more than $25 million from these initiatives, thereby substantially reducing the volume levels required to operate our business profitably, once economic conditions improve. In this difficult environment, we will continue managing our cash, and we anticipate further balance sheet improvements in the upcoming quarters.
We expect this recession will be long and the recovery will be slow, but we have positioned ourselves well and are in a much better position to weather the storm than we were just a year ago. We expect to see gradual improvement in our business through the current quarter and the first half of our 2010 fiscal year. We will stay the course and remain committed as an organization to operational excellence, margin improvement, global growth and the on-going development and commercialization of new and innovative products."